Everyone talks about the "dog days of summer", but very few people talk about "National Dog Day" - a special holiday in honor of "man's best friend" - celebrated every August 26th. (The 2009 edition of this occasion was overshadowed by the tragic news of the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, one day earlier).

When I'd learned about "National Dog Day", I'd decided to render a drawing of a corpulent canine who knew of only 'one way' to celebrate it. In the past, I'd already drawn paunchy pooches like Toner and Cody McDowd; so, it only seemed fitting that my latest model for one of my drawings is Mr. Labrador.

That's the good news...

The bad news is that history repeated itself... It took me a little over one hour to draw this rear and frontal pose for Labby, and it took me over two hours to use Paint.net to scan, add color (including shadows and shading), resize the art, and add an extra layer for the credit to said character; and it only took a few seconds for the floppy disk I was downloading the artwork on to get corrupted and lose everything I'd worked on! (The last time this had occurred was several months back, when I thought I'd saved the "Aphrodite Sudoku" color art just as a storm came by and knocked out the power in my PC!) And if I were to attempt to rescan and recolor, by the time I'd finally get to download this drawing, "National Dog Day" will be over!

(This is one bobcat who is truly living "a dog's life"!)

So, for now, I'm posting the original black-and-white image of Mr. Labrador (I had drawn earlier today). And if I'm in a better mood (in a week or two), I'll consider trying to color it all over again...

'Mr. Labrador' © his player
Artwork and gag concept © Rob Cat